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Corporate reporting and accouting for externalities / Jeffrey Unerman, Jan Bebbington, Brendan O Dwyer.
// Accounting and Business Research Vol.48, No 5 2018.p. 497-522. Externalities comprise economic, social and/or environmental impacts arising from the activities of an entity that are borne by others, at least in the short term. As they do not feedback directly into immediate financial consequences for the entity, they tend to be outside the remit of financial reporting. A dispersed academic accounting literature on externalities has hitherto developed separately from concerns about what information is appropriate to report on corporate performance. This paper develops insights into accounting for, and reporting of, externalities that are intended to improve the use of externalities information in breaking down silos between the traditionally discrete domains of financial reporting and sustainability reporting, and between silos within sustainability reporting. Challenges in such use of externalities information are explored, including difficulties inherent in the quantification of externalities. The paper also highlights ways in which externalities can progressively become internalised, thereby bringing them more readily within the domain of economically focused financial reporting practices. An agenda for further research to help enhance the accounting for, and reporting of, externalities is also proposed.
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Re-theorizing the configuration of organizational fields: the IIRC and the pursuit of ‘Enlightened’ corporate reporting / Christopher Humphrey, Brendan O’Dwyer, Jeffrey Unerman
// Accounting and Business Research Volume 47, 2017 - Issue 1 2017.p. 30-63. This paper studies the emergence of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and its attempts to institutionalize integrated reporting as a practice that is critical to the relevance and value of corporate reporting. Informed by Suddaby and Viale’s [(2011). Professionals and field-level change: institutional work and the professional project. Current Sociology, 59, 423–442] theorization of how professionals reconfigure organizational fields, the paper delineates the strategies and mechanisms through which the IIRC has sought to enroll the support of a wide range of stakeholder groups for the idea of integrated reporting in order to deliver a fundamental reconfiguration of the corporate reporting field. The paper’s analysis reinforces the significance to any such field reconfiguration of the reciprocal and mutual arrangements between influential professionals and other powerful actors but does so in a way that (a) refines Suddaby and Viale’s theorization of processes of field-level change and (b) pinpoints the fundamental policy challenges facing the IIRC. Gieryn’s [(1983). Boundary work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48 (6), 781–795] notion of boundary work is operationalized to capture some of the complexity and dynamism of the change process that is not sufficiently represented by Suddaby and Viale’s more sequentialist theorization. From a policy perspective, the paper demonstrates just how much the IIRC’s prospects for success in reconfiguring the corporate reporting field depend on its ability to reconfigure the mainstream investment field. Ultimately, this serves to question whether the IIRC’s conceptualization of ‘enlightened’ corporate reporting is sufficiently powerful and persuasive to stimulate ‘enlightened’ investment behavior focused on the medium and long term – and, more generally stresses the theoretical significance of considering connections across related organizational fields in institutional analyses of field reconfiguration efforts.
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The contents of assurance statements for sustainability reports and information asymmetry / Stephan Fuhrmann, Christian Ott, Elisabeth Looks, Thomas W. Guenther
// Accounting and Business Research Volume 47, 2017 - Issue 4 2017.p. 369-400. This paper investigates how the assurance of sustainability reports enhances the credibility of such reports in the eyes of the investors and, thus, results in lower information asymmetries, as measured by bid-ask spreads. We measure the assurance of sustainability reports based on a content analysis of the assurance statements in which the assurance providers describe the design of the assurance process. For a matched sample of 442 STOXX 600 Europe companies with and without assured sustainability reports, our results indicate that a high-quality design of the assurance process reduces the level of information asymmetry. While an assurance process substantiating a high assurance level decreases information asymmetries, an assurance process that ensures only a moderate assurance level is insufficient. If an assurance provider performs tests of details of numerical data, this further reduces information asymmetries. For countries without regulations on sustainability reporting, we provide evidence that analytical tests of aggregated indicators, the description of the assurance provider’s competencies and the description of the sustainability assurance-specific work steps also contribute to a reduction of information asymmetries.
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The contents of assurance statements for sustainability reports and information asymmetry/ Stephan Fuhrmann, Christian Ott, Elisabeth Looks, Thomas W. Guenther
// Accounting and Business Research vol.47, no. 4/2017 2017.p. 370 - 400. This paper investigates how the assurance of sustainability reports enhances the credibility of such reports in the eyes of the investors and, thus, results in lower information asymmetries, as measured by bid-ask spreads. We measure the assurance of sustainability reports based on a content analysis of the assurance statements in which the assurance providers describe the design of the assurance process. For a matched sample of 442 STOXX 600 Europe companies with and without assured sustainability reports, our results indicate that a high-quality design of the assurance process reduces the level of information asymmetry. While an assurance process substantiating a high assurance level decreases information asymmetries, an assurance process that ensures only a moderate assurance level is insufficient. If an assurance provider performs tests of details of numerical data, this further reduces information asymmetries. For countries without regulations on sustainability reporting, we provide evidence that analytical tests of aggregated indicators, the description of the assurance provider’s competencies and the description of the sustainability assurance-specific work steps also contribute to a reduction of information asymmetries.
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